UPDATED: Bernie Sanders supporters won Colorado’s three seats on the Democratic National Committee, ousting longtime party leaders and Hillary Clinton loyalists.

The Democratic delegates at the state convention elected Terry Tucker, Jeri Shepherd and Mike Hamrick, the party announced late Monday. Sanders supporters pushed the slate and worked to get them elected at the party confab Saturday in Loveland, though the campaign said it didn’t officially endorse them.

The selections give party outsiders a foothold in the state and national Democratic leadership amid concerns about bias toward Clinton and other establishment candidates. Sanders’ strong showing at precinct and county level party meetings helped him stack the deck at the state convention — where he won the straw poll and claimed a majority of the delegates.

But his big showing does little to help with superdelegates in the 2016 election. The new DNC members will take office the day after the Democratic national convention in Philadelphia.

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock spoke during the news conference kicking off the campaign for a now-failed ballot measure that would have created a sales tax to help Denver students pay for college. He was flanked by campaign supporters including former Mayor Wellington Webb, left, and Kelly Brough, president and CEO of the Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce. (Jon Murray, The Denver Post)

Denver political observers like to point out that many Denverites still prefer to vote on Election Day, even in the era of the all-mail ballot. That was true yet again for Tuesday’s off-year coordinated election — and what a difference the late Denver turnout made for one incumbent, and nearly made for a troubled ballot measure.

More than one-third of the ballots cast in this morning’s final unofficial results came in Tuesday, whether via in-person votes or mail ballots getting delivered or dropped off on the last day.

The late vote saved Allegra “Happy” Haynes, the Denver Public Schools board president, from re-election defeat. And though Measure 2A — the proposed college affordability sales tax — still lost, ballots that came in on Election Day actually favored the proposal by a 7-percentage-point margin, my quick analysis shows.

Overall turnout for the election in Denver stands at 35 percent, compared to 29 percent in the May 5 municipal election that featured many competitive City Council races.

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock said during a news conference last week that a ballot measure that would create a sales tax to help Denver students pay for college would benefit the city’s economy. He’s flanked by campaign supporters that include former Mayor Wellington Webb, left, and Kelly Brough, president and CEO of the Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce. (Jon Murray, The Denver Post)

In a blow delivered by Mayor Michael Hancock’s political compatriots, Denver Democrats last weekend decided against endorsing a major college tax ballot measure backed by the mayor.

At Saturday’s Central Committee meeting, the members mustered 69 votes to support a proposed new sales tax to help Denver-resident college students pay for college, either through loan pay-back or support for scholarship groups. But 94 voted against supporting the ballot question as a local party, confirmed Anne Murdaugh, the county party chair.

Former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb warmed up the crowd to a fever pitch at Hillary Clinton’s first campaign speech in Colorado Tuesday night. (Photo by Joey Bunch/The Denver Post)

By the time I arrived in Denver in September 2002, Wellington Webb was in the last months in office as Denver’s mayor. Over the years, I’ve interviewed him on all manner of topics and run into him here and there at social or political functions. Before Tuesday night, I would have told you he’s reserved and matter-of-fact, though still very easy with a smile.

With Clinton waiting in the wings for her first Colorado stump speec Tuesday, Webb was stealing the show. I’m a former speechwriter, humanities foundation speaker and speechmaking state Kiwanis Club lieutenant governor, so my professional opinion is Webb’s still got it. He hit every mark perfectly, and that’s not praise I hand out lightly.

Webb packaged every point in syntax that would make you remember it, hardly a wasted word, which is really hard to do for even a couple of minutes, much less nine. He had no notes, no teleprompter. The only other person in Colorado who I’ve witnessed do that as well is state House Republican leader Brian DelGrosso from Loveland; Democrats get uneasy when he heads to the mic. When Webb finished, I turned to the reporter next to me and said, “Wow.”

Now several of Nevitt’s supporters are helping O’Brien pay back $40,000 in loans he made to boost his campaign when big-money supporters were hard to find. Lawyers, business types and lobbyists are joining union officials in hosting a Wednesday fundraiser at 5:30 p.m. at a Cherry Creek North restaurant.

The list of hosts includes attorney Steve Farber, businessman Walter Isenberg and lobbyists Josh Hanfling and R.D. Sewald. Also co-hosting the event — donating up to the maximum $2,000 to O’Brien — are the UA Rocky Mountain Council No. 5, Plumbers Local No. 3, and the Colorado Building and Construction Trades Council.

All of those individuals and unions gave to Nevitt’s well-financed campaign, often heavily, in the race to succeed three-term Auditor Dennis Gallagher. Also joining Wednesday’s fundraiser for O’Brien as a host is former Mayor Wellington Webb.

For “On the Spot,” the weekly Denver Post TV political show, I joined politics reporter Lynn Bartels and politics editor Chuck Plunkett Thursday to talk about the May 5 Denver city election. You can watch the entire On the Spot interview above, or click here.

But other races provided plenty of winners, losers and other notable outcomes in an election season that will install seven new faces on the 13-member City Council. Four of those new members still haven’t been chosen, pending runoffs June 2.

Most surprising margin: Architect and neighborhood activist Rafael Espinoza’s defeat of one-term Councilwoman Susan Shepherd in northwest Denver’s District 1 wasn’t necessarily the surprise — she long had been seen as the most endangered incumbent. But it was the 37-percentage-point margin of victory that turned heads. The drubbing delivered to Shepherd underlined that voters who cared enough to cast ballots this election were fed up about the pace and scale of redevelopment in a part of the city that’s been feeling some of the greatest pressure from it.

Tim O’Brien, at a candidate forum in March, pulled off an upset, defeating Councilman Chris Nevitt for Denver city auditor in Tuesday’s election. (Lynn Bartels, The Denver Post)

Departing Denver City Auditor Dennis Gallagher on Wednesday distanced himself from Chris Nevitt, a day after Nevitt’s surprising loss in the race for auditor.

Denver voters choose former state auditor Tim O’Brien over Nevitt, a councilman who wracked up the big donations and the big endorsements, including Gallagher’s. O’Brien took 53 percent of the vote to Nevitt’s 47 percent.

Former U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar touts Michael Carrigan’s candidacy for Denver district attorney Thursday at La Casita. (Photo taken with Lynn Bartels’ phone)

Although his mother is ill in the hospital, Democrat Ken Salazar still managed to make it Thursday night to Michael Carrigan’s kick off for Denver district attorney.

Salazar — former attorney general, U.S. senator and head of the Interior Department who now is in private practice — is much in demand as an endorser.

Is that a way for Salazar to keep his name in the limelight as he prepares for a 2018 run for governor?

Salazar laughed at the question.

“They’re my friends. I worked with them for a long time and I know their values,” he said. “All I am doing is helping people who I care a lot about. These are people who are going to make a big difference for people in Colorado.”

Here’s what some former and current regents, two former mayors and a governor and others have to say about Kirk:

Former University of Colorado Regent Susan Kirk. (Handout)

Lindy Eichenbaum Lent, executive director,
Civic Center Conservancy:

Susan would often tell me that it was hell getting older, and yet she did it with such no-holds-barred panache. From her brightly-colored fashion-forward ensembles, to her enviable travels and art collection, to her fascination with snowboarding icon Shaun White, to her insistence that nothing interfere with her daily evening cocktail with husband Dick Kirk — always using both his first and last name, to always seeking ways to connect her vast networks of people to her passions, Susan was truly one-of-a-kind.

The 2016 presidential election is all the rage in Washington and the fever is starting to spread west to Colorado.

This weekend, MoveOn.org is coordinating house parties across the nation to encourage Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren to run for president.

Warren has said many times before, including in Colorado, that she is not interested. But it’s not dampening the “Run Warren Run” effort.

A Denver event at a rooftop condo in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, hosted by Steven Olberg, is booked with 40 people registered to attend. Another in Greeley is expecting eight participants and a Colorado Springs event will draw 18, organizers say.

The event is timed one-year-to-the-day before the first votes are cast in the Democratic presidential primary, according to organizers.

An event for an actual potential candidate’s campaign — Democrat Hillary Clinton — is scheduled for Monday in Denver.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.